Bonum Certa Men Certa

In the Courts, Where Patents Are Assessed Independently, Geeks Are Winning the Battle Against Parasitic Litigation Firms

All we see from the "big litigation" lobby these days is court- or judge-bashing

Trump and Iancu



Summary: Mockery of courts and disdain for the law come not from productive industries but from unproductive 'industries' that are doing nothing but patents and litigation; they have completely and undeniably lost the argument

LAST month we published the Internet Association's comments on the "Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance", which sought to work around or overcome 35 U.S.C. €§ 101 (similarly, bypassing the courts, EPO President António Campinos works around the EPC to grant software patents in Europe).



"The patent zealots have nothing left but court- or judge-bashing."There are troubling signs that the litigation lobby will try anything it takes to work around the law. Weeks ago we mentioned Coons et al coming back with their ludicrous (and old) pile of papers. TechDirt's founder has just commented on it, but we don't believe these comments are even necessary anymore. They have been trying it for years and it always fails. They keep renaming and rebranding the same pile of papers. This time too it's already off the headlines; completely. Like UPC.

In Mike Masnick's own words:

For most of the history of Techdirt, we've talked about what an incredible mess the US patent system has been. There are many, many reasons for this, but a big one was that for decades, the appeals court that handles all patent cases, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (or CAFC), kept expanding what it considered to be patentable subject matter, and the Supreme Court completely ignored the issue. This culminated, ridiculously, in the State Street decision, which massively expanded what was considered patentable software (before that there was software covered by patents, but it was very, very limited). What made this situation truly hellish for innovators, is that (1) the software world was exploding with all different kinds of apps, and (2) almost no software was documented in the very few areas where patent examiners look for prior art: mainly, other patent applications and scientific journals. There was no need to document software in those places, because (1) when most people recognized software shouldn't be patented, very few even tried, and (2) why would you?

That resulted in a perfect storm in which patent trolls rushed in to fill the void. Tons upon tons of ridiculously broad patents were filed (or older ones were dug up and "repurposed" for use in trolling). Then it just became a shakedown game of numbers. Find companies doing something vaguely like what's broadly and oddly described in your patent, tell them they're infringing -- and offer to "settle" for less than the cost to win in court.

The tide started to change over the last decade and a half or so, in part because of a few changes to the law, but more importantly, the Supreme Court started to wake up to the fact that the CAFC had gone rogue and had massively rewritten patent law. And then over a period of about a decade, case by case by case, the Supreme Court smacked down CAFC. Two of the biggest such smackdowns came in the Mayo Labs ruling in 2012 which rejected medical diagnostic patents, and the Alice ruling in 2014, which rejected patents on software that performs "generic functions" (which is basically all software).


The patent zealots have nothing left but court- or judge-bashing. We've just noticed that Paul Morinville is once again attacking US courts (in Watchtroll, as usual) just shortly after losing in the Federal Circuit (an appeal of a decision from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB)). Watchtroll is a toxic site which attacks science and justice. We refuse to even link to it any longer. James Nurton (formerly of think tank Managing IP, now writing in Watchtroll) has a new headline there: "Iancu Calls on Federal Circuit to Fix Section 101 Problem" (Iancu the Trump flunky is just another Battistelli, wrongly thinking he 'bosses' the courts). Curiously enough, corporate media, especially in the US, loves talking about corrupt Trump appointments... except that of Iancu, whose firm had worked for Trump before he got the job at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Nurton, as it turns out, cites a think tank of litigators, funded by corporations like Microsoft. "Speaking at the 27th Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference at Fordham Law School on April 25, Mr. Iancu said the interpretation of Section 101 is “the most important issue of substantive patent law currently”..."

Bristows (Annsley Merelle Ward) is still writing about it in IP Kat (twice more yesterday [1, 2]), pushing the agenda of patent trolls and law firms, as usual. And Managing IP is, as usual, only asking lawyers (of trolls in this case, an Ericsson proxy) for their views on Unwired Planet v Huawei. "By taking a FRAND showdown between Unwired Planet and Huawei," said the summary, "the UK Supreme Court can show that it’s not afraid to make bold decisions on global disputes if others won’t, lawyers tell Managing IP..."

They never bother asking technical people. When James Nurton worked there they were doing lots of puff pieces for him, including UPC propaganda and 'interviews' with softball questions.

In more positive news, Josh Landau (CCIA) says there's a bill in the making to discourage patent trolls. Massachusetts State Sen. Eric "Lesser and Ehrlich hope to protect innovation against fraudulent and bad faith assertions," he wrote yesterday. This one would actually protect technical people:

Across the United States, two-thirds of all states have introduced legislation that targets bad faith patent assertion by entities like MPHJ and Shipping and Transit. Massachusetts State Sen. Eric Lesser and State Rep. Lori Ehrlich are trying to make Massachusetts the most recent state to join this club.

Lesser and Ehrlich recently re-introduced their bad faith assertion bill that would allow victims of bad faith patent assertions to recover reasonable attorney’s fees and other costs incurred in defending themselves from a bad faith assertion. By allowing recovery of defense fees against these sorts of plaintiffs, Lesser and Ehrlich hope to protect innovation against fraudulent and bad faith assertions.


As usual, there's a silent war between technical people and lawyers in "Home of the Brave" (where you have to be brave to create something as extortion may be around the corner). At the moment geeks have the upper hand.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Explaining (in Length and Depth) the Damage Matthew Garrett Did to Linux and to GNU/Linux Users
no matter how many threats we receive
 
Slopwatch: Slow Slop Day
This distracts from or may take traffic away from the original articles, actually written by actual people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 12, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, September 12, 2025
CoC Gone Wrong: Celebrating Murder OK, Complaining About the Celebration Gets You Banned
Hopefully the NixOS Foundation will have a word with (maybe replace) the moderator/s
Gemini Links 12/09/2025: Familiarity and Secondary Dominants
Links for the day
Links 12/09/2025: "Bad Reviews" as Extortion Weapon, "Free Speech At Risk in America’s Schools" According to ACLU
Links for the day
Only One Speaker Does Not Do Sharecropping for MElon (in X.com)
The man who puts principles before PR/optics
The Mind of the 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI'
in a nutshell
A Day After "UEFI 9/11": UEFI Secure Boot Bypass
In the news today (right now), as published in the past few hours
Links 12/09/2025: Slop Code as Liability, Microsoft Outlook Down for Many
Links for the day
It's Still Not to Late to Turn Off "Secure Boot"
If people reboot their PC or server today, and it relies on "Secure Boot" on Sept. 12 or later, then depending on the firmware there may be trouble ahead
Links 12/09/2025: Shira Perlmutter is Back, “Software Per Se” Patent Rejections in In re McFadden
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Linux Plagiarism, Slopfarms Still Infesting Google News, Many Images Are Fake
Google is promoting plagiarism
"This Morning Might Turn Out to be an Interesting One for System Admins Who Haven't Updated Their Devices' Secure Boot Certificate" (If They Reboot)
Who asked for this anyway?
Gemini Links 12/09/2025: Metric System, Dumping Windows, and Software Architecture is Dead
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 11, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, September 11, 2025
Microsoft Admits the Workers Have Lost Trust (Endless Layoffs, 12-13 Rounds of Layoffs This Year), So Now It's Trotting out Its Peter Bright-Like Media Prop Jordan Novet
What they don't want people to pay attention to right now
Links 11/09/2025: Windows TCO and Russian Drones Invading Poland (EU/NATO)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/09/2025: xkcd, misfin, and Alhena 5.3.2
Links for the day
Repetition of Last Summer (Microsoft Breaking Dual-Boot Systems)
UEFI 9/11 is about to kick in
UEFI 'Secure Boot' Boiling Frogs (Cannot Turn Off 'Secure Boot')
"MSI laptop is locked on Secure Boot and doesn't allow me to turn it off"
UEFI 9/11 Aftermath - Part IV: The 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' and His 'Hideout' Holiday (Retreat From Reality)
Let's keep an eye on what matters
UEFI 9/11 Aftermath - Part III: Mr. 'Secure Boot' (Shim) and His Fake 'Holiday' (Sending My Wife and I Threatening E-mails on 9/11)
despite being on holiday, according to him, he finds time to instruct lawyers to contact my wife
UEFI 9/11 Aftermath - Part II: "The SecureBoot Thing Got Out of Hand."
The next few weeks might be... interesting
UEFI 9/11 Aftermath - Part I: "I Believe This Affects Thousands of Devices... Because Multiple Devices I Checked, Whether Client or Server [...] Affected."
Most people aren't even aware that this is happening or about to happen
The UEFI 9/11 - Part X - An Outline of the Series About Microsoft Sabotaging GNU/Linux (With Ramifications to Unfold Online in Coming Weeks as People Reboot)
Today is UEFI 9/11 (9/11/2025)
Ron Wyden: Microsoft Should be Held Accountable for Security Breaches (He Has Said This for Years Already, It Never Happens)
Negative media coverage isn't a fine and it does nothing to compensate Microsoft's billions of victims
Culture of silence: Ubisoft harassment convictions, Mozilla, Sylvestre Ledru & Debian make no comment
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Disable 'Secure Boot' (If It Lets You)
it doesn't put you in control
Links 11/09/2025: "Hey Hi" Ponzi Schemes at Oracle (Unpaid Contracts) and Cindy Cohn is Leaving the EFF
Links for the day
Longtime Red Hat Staff: Maybe Just Disable 'Secure Boot'
A refreshing take from Adam Williamson
Gemini Links 11/09/2025: Playdate Console, Dichotomy between the Real and the Digital
Links for the day
A Dozen Observations About "UEFI 9/11" Deflections
What we are expected to see, tentatively
The Microsoft AstroTurfing and Microsoft-Led Blame-Shifting Tactics Are Ahead of Us
Of course it has nothing to do with security, it's about control, i.e. them controlling everything
Celebrating Assassination is Bad Because It Legitimises Assassination of the People You Like, Too
Condoning or even celebrating political assassinations is bad optics (and taste)
The World's Richest Ponzi Scheme (Faking Value Using Net Waste)
The higher they go the harder they fall
We Could Dual-Boot Back in the 1990s, Why Has This Become So Difficult?
And prone to breakage
Being Conditioned to Accept Unreliable Computer Systems That Fail With Black Screen of Death (BSoD)
Welcome to 2025
Slopwatch: Google News is Still Promoting Many Fake Articles About "Linux", in Effect Rewarding Misinformation and Plagiarism
things continue to deteriorate
New Series: The Coup Against GNU/Linux Has Begun
today, this year in particular, we shall also focus on Secure Boot, which is sold based on a lie and tortures many computer user
New Paper on "BYOVD, but in firmware. Signed UEFI shells, vulnerable modules offer new paths for Secure Boot bypasses."
One might say digital "security theatre"
Links 11/09/2025: Oracle Layoffs, Drunk Pilots in Japan Airlines, US-Korea Tensions Grow
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 10, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 10, 2025